This hefty torpedo comes in at 6×54 with a Connecticut Broadleaf Maduro wrapper, Honduran binder, and a mix of Dominican, Brazilian, and Mexican filler. The firm cap cut cleanly revealing a pleasant pre-light aroma and draw with a mild tobacco flavor though lacking the sweetness on the lips that I find in a lot maduro-wrappered cigars.

This cigar lit easily with the slightest bit of toasting the foot though the draw produced a little less smoke than I expected of a cigar with a ring guage of 54. The burn was nice and even leaving behind a medium-grey ash with dark-grey to black spots. The body was rather mild and the finish was rather short. The first third produced light earthy flavors, never changed much but never got unpleasant either.

The second third provided a slight increase in the body of the smoke with no real change of the main flavor. The burn continued to be rather straight with the ash falling at just under an inch. I never tasted any cocoa but every now and again through the second third I got the aroma of cocoa from the standing smoke.

The last third gave the only real build to the body and the slightest hints of leather, though we’re still talking about a rather mild smoke. The smoke output finally picked up here but started to get slightly hot. There’s really not that much else to say about this smoke, the flavors are not what I would call complex, mostly one-dimensional though never being unpleasant.

All of the things I like about a maduro cigar were present, just in rather small doses. I wouldn’t recommend this cigar to an experienced smoker that was just looking to try a maduro but I definitely think it’s a good maduro for those relatively new to cigar smoking. One of my favorite things about smoking a slow-burning maduro cigar is the oily ring that sometimes forms right behind the burn ring, again I got it from this Helix, but just a little.